JON OLIVA: 'I Never Downloaded A Song For Free In My Life'

Brian Rademacher of Rock Eyez recently conducted an interview with Jon Oliva (SAVATAGE, JON OLIVA'S PAIN). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Rock Eyez: We just did an interview with Zak Stevens [former SAVATAGE and current CIRCLE II CIRCLE singer], and a question I asked him was that if he could change anything during his music career, what that would be? His answer was the passing of your brother, Criss. How does that make you feel?

Jon Oliva: That would be the same thing for me. It had a serious effect on all of us.

Rock Eyez: Tell me what the differences are between his two releases and those from SAVATAGE, since they sound familiar.

Jon Oliva: My last two releases with SAVATAGE are really not different, other than different people playing instruments. Songwriting is the same, except I'm writing the lyrics instead of Paul [O'Neill], and basically any song that I've done could be on a SAVATAGE record. I wrote all the songs for SAVATAGE, so obviously there will always be that similarity between what I do. That's OK — it doesn't bother me. It's just a different phase of what I'm doing. It all stems from the same thing.

Rock Eyez: Tell us about the SAVATAGE anniversary tour?

Jon Oliva: It's not going to be a tour. We're going to do something, not sure what yet. Maybe an album, might do a live thing, film it, and release it as a DVD. There are a couple other options but we haven't decided yet what we'll do. It's just time to find the time do it since we are always busy. We are going to do something once we have the time to do it the right way.

Rock Eyez: What's your feeling about YouTube, the service that allows you to see a full concert or clips from your concerts without permission from the artist?

Jon Oliva: Yeah, (laughing). I don't know. It's good and it's bad, it's exposure. It's just as with anything-there's good and bad in everything. The internet is great in getting your message out and getting people involved in your websites and reaching a lot of people. The thing that is bad is that people can get your records for nothing and we are making records to make a living. It's like owning a grocery store, people would come in and take the milk without paying, and eventually it's going to cause a problem. It is what it is; it's the world today so you just gotta deal with it. I think it hurt the record companies the most because they're not selling half the records that they used to sell because people are just downloading them for nothing. It's taken the special-ness out of going out and buying someone's own album. An album to me is the lyrics and the artwork and if you don't have the lyrics and the artwork, it's not like having the real record. I personally never downloaded a song for free in my life because I personally think it's not right. That's just me.

Read the entire interview at www.rockeyez.com.